this is a harvest
by but seriously
Summary: "Ask me to choose you, Caroline," Klaus continues heatedly, "go ahead, and I will, with everything that I have. But in return, you're going to have to do the one thing you've been fighting since the night I sat on your bedside and fed you my blood. You're going to have to choose me back. It's only fair," and he spits these last words out. - FOR TAYLOR
1. the walls are falling, falling down

This is a love story, unapologetically so. I've always wanted to write one, and I did this time, with abandon. You have no idea how many times this story was written and re-written. Nine, last time I counted. This makes ten.

This is a love story, and it may not seem that way, at first – but when is it ever that way with love? I thrive in subtlety and well-timed touches, the mad temptation of _feeling_ , of Klaus and Caroline circa season 3. This is a love story and it's for Taylor (candicemorgan on tumblr), because I'm nuts about her and for some reason she is nuts about me too. Thank you for your prompt! Here's what became of it.

As always, this story wouldn't have gone the direction it did without my main ho in everything DJ (fleshandbonetelephone) holding my hand through it cause I'm a baby and sometimes my writing is crappy but it's better to try and write something terrible than not writing at all, right? And Melissa (goldaught on tumblr), the ringleader of this circus of feels. Inspired by one of her favourite KC quotes of all time (written by Clamentine von Radics: The Poet Drunk Dials), which is now one of mine as well.

TAYLOR'S PROMPT: **"talkative man" by r. k. narayan** \+ _she declined at first, but had to pretend to drink in order to please him_

 _—_

* * *

 _—_

 **THIS IS A HARVEST**

.

.

 _Earlier I thought of you, how you were far away—_

.

 _—_

* * *

—

The thing about Klaus, she sometimes reminisces, is that she will never stop feeling him in her skin. Like a bullet lodged deep in her chest, somewhere, waiting to find its end through mush, marrow and bone—like the sting of cold water against fever flush skin. Like a bad, bad dream.

She has never wanted anyone more in her life.

—

—

How fucking unfortunate.

—

—

It's a party, it's a ball.

Her hair is done up, big exultant curls that remind her of Katherine and a time long ago, and there's champagne being offered in her direction. She's already forgotten his name.

She'd declined the drink at first, but he had insisted, and she's sure he's the type to make total ass out of it judging from the way his lips were making a U-turn into a pout, and had to pretend to drink in order to please him.

Back then, in a different ballroom in a different city she had enjoyed these sorts of occasions. But then again, back then—and she thinks this with a silly sort of heat creeping in her cheeks—back then her dress hadn't even been her own.

She doesn't even know why she humours him; feigns a hurt ankle if only to escape the stifling poise of the crowd.

"I'm not surprised your feet hurt, Clara," he laughs. It sounds vacant even in the bursting room. "You're quite the dancer."

It takes her a second to respond. She parts her lips to sip champagne from her flute—has the sudden, tempting urge to force it down his throat—Says primly: "I know."

—

—

She takes him to bed, hates every single minute of it, hates how eager his tongue is, stops him with a forceful clench of her fists when he tries to roll her onto her back. There is a jump in her pulse as she toys with the idea of drinking him through a straw, and he must have seen something in her eyes change, because he leaves as soon as he's had a cigarette on her balcony.

But before that:

"I'll call you," he says, his hand on her bare shoulder, twirling a piece of her hair with a baby-smooth finger. The picture of chivalry, even with bruised lips and torn bowtie.

"No, you won't," she replies, tapping her cigarette into her gilded silver ashtray, and she doesn't even have to compel him.

—

—

Kol is ever-approving, his raucous laughter banging into her eardrums, and she smiles despite herself and waves the man who'd been trailing her with shopping bags back to her hotel room.

"Let me guess." He has his eyes closed in mock concentration as he presses a finger pressed to his brow. "You've adopted a new name. It has to be glamourous, but understated, because that's the look you're going for, yes? What is it, pray tell? Ooh, tell me it isn't _Amelie_."

Caroline scowls, doesn't tell him that that was one of the names she'd considered; he couldn't possibly know what was in her Netflix queue. Not even Kol was that good. "Audrey."

"Audrey!" Kol cackles with glee, how he _loves_ that. "Hepburn?"

"Tatou. You wouldn't know her."

But Kol's smile widens, slow, anything but friendly, and Caroline realizes with an inward groan that Kol – he is indeed that good.

And god, is she _that_ starved for some semblance of her old life? is what she wonders when he envelopes her in a bear hug that nothing of his lanky frame suggests he is capable of, and she doesn't push him away. His coat smells of rain and something metallic she can taste in the back of her tongue, and a wave of – something – crashes through her, something far removed than what she's been living the last ten years or so, something old and ageless.

"How's my girl been?"

Caroline pulls away, not skipping a beat.

"Surviving," she says with unaffectedly, coolly-masked boredom, all the airs and graces of an heiress she'd befriended during her time as Clara. She makes a show of fixing her earrings, hoping the sway and clatter of the golden strings would distract Kol from the punishing drum of her heart. "There's a darling pastry shop a few minutes' walk away, won't you join me for some tea?"

Her smile twitches with irritation when Kol's booming laughter returns. " _Darling_ pastry shop? I'm sorry, but you sounded so much like Bekah, little _side_ activities and all." He steps back with eyebrows raised to consider her, and then grins. "London suits you, my sweet."

"Urgh, whatevs," she grouses, dragging her sunglasses down over her eyes, eyelids snapping shut as she counts silently to ten.

Old habits, she supposes, when Kol offers her his arm and she rolls her eyes before taking it, and even older habits when, halfway through tea, she starts burning with curiosity.

Kol pops a cherry into his mouth. "Wait any longer and your ears might start steaming and whistling, Audrey. Cough it out."

Caroline swallows down a long-suffering sigh. "How did you know where—"

Several scrutinizing eyes zero in on their table when Kol makes a sound akin to a game show buzzer, crude and loud and _annoying_ , "That's a boring one. Next!"

 _God_. Ten years is not nearly enough time away from this total _prat._ But she pastes a smile on her face, charming as much as it is menacing, and the stares eventually stray.

"Am I being followed?" she stirs her tea without as much as a clatter, she closes her mouth around strawberry Pavlova delicately, not a trace of a crumb on her pink-painted lips.

"You mean, is Nik keeping tabs on you?" Kol grins.

She glares.

It's even more infuriating when he sings, "I won't answer unless you ask very specifically."

"What if I asked you very specifically to leave?"

" _Darling,_ " he says, and promptly snickers. "It's terrible manners for a man to leave a lady deathly bored and alone in a city where nobody knows her."

When he stirs his tea his spoon scrapes noisily against the delicate china, hitting every single nerve he knew would hit.

—

—

Kol wouldn't let her let him leave until they'd eaten at least _one_ human together, and she grumbles her assent if only to get him to fuck off, and it's while they're licking their fingertips clean that Kol says, "How thrilling. Nik would be absolutely _thrilled_ to hear."

"Go on, then. Go tell him about the shenanigans you and I have been up to. The feeding and the drinking, and—oh, here. Why don't you give him a little souvenir? Help him sleep at night?" she can't help how bitter she sounds, but thinks she covers it just fine: in any case, Kol ignores the blood-speckled scarf she'd unwound from her neck, the one she's thrusting to him now, in favour of fixing her a sordid, sharp look.

"Caroline Forbes, you are in far too deep."

"You're not telling him anything," she says flatly.

Kol worries a bit of blood on his palm with his tongue. "Or you'll kill me?"

"Yes."

There is a beat. Kol gives her a sidelong glance, still sucking on his thumb, perhaps wondering if she meant it. She did.

"Oh, darling," he says, and she's surprised to find that this time it's not a mockery, even while his teeth shine sharp as ever.

—

—

Kol hops a plane out of there, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake – should she really be surprised by now? At the very least he had cleaned himself up properly before pecking her with the most magnanimous of farewell kisses, something she's sure Elijah must have taught him some time in their vampy immortality.

Out of habit more than anything, she sends Stefan a quick text, filled with word of the world, smiley faces, lots of exclamation points. His reply is short, but warm. She asks about Elena, and her phone beeps soon after.

 _Still sleeping._

Stefan, she wants to sigh, the only person not to knock her on the head, to ask the ever obvious question, _What the hell did you expect?_

—

—

Everything, Klaus had said.

The center of the universe, Klaus had said. The center of the universe right in this polished mahogany coffin with its hand-painted accents, with the keyhole Bonnie had spelled just _so_ , the keyhole that only ever fit one key.

Everything, right here, locked away.

His eyes catch hers running. She's standing on the edge of town, just a little way behind the looming _Welcome to Mystic Falls_ sign. He's standing on the other side, car engine started, door open, hazard lights blinking out its urgency.

"What a pity," Klaus says, and leaves.

—

—

And it's _silly_ to want, even sillier to pray, even _worse_ to remember: a press of the forehead, tarnished golden curls catching Virginia sunlight, the whitened lines of old scars on a hand placed very deliberately on her thigh.

The _thing_ about Klaus, she furiously ruminates, is that she will never stop feeling him in her skin. She'd thought that her emotions would mellow over the years, but all they did was age and blister.

She had loved and she had been silly with it, forgotten that some used it as a weapon, while she—she used it as an anchor for everything she knew in life. Her mother, Elena, Bonnie. Some nights she thinks of her father, too. It's only fair.

Klaus used to laugh at that. In his kitchen where everything gleamed silver and new, bought for show rather than use, not anything at all like the clutter of her own kitchen where in the summer it smelled like peach cobbler and in the winter of slightly-burnt roast.

She'd scowled then, angry that he'd made fun of a secret she'd carried with her for so long – angrier still that she had even told him to begin with. It must have been the blood. Sticky like tar, straight from the vein of some flushed-cheeked boy she vaguely remembered seeing at the Grill once. Going straight to her head.

"Caroline, Caroline." The slow lick of his smile; hearty, indulgent. Klaus only ever smiles like that when he's just fed. "I never knew you to be so vulnerable."

"Don't make fun of me," she sulks, glaring harder, but all he does is chuckle.

" _Be positive_ , sweetheart," he says, another jab at her, and so _what_ if she likes to put a cheesy spin to her meals? She's already doomed to an existence of damnation, a little cute won't hurt.

And just to spite him send the bitten boy off with a little bit of her blood in him, leans in close and tells him he'd been studying at the library until he got a migraine and had to go home.

"Now why'd you do that for?" It's Klaus's turn to scowl.

"If you and I are going to keep on these little… _trysts,_ " she says with her face pulled, for lack of a better word. Klaus, for some reason, pauses— "don't you think it's best we get rid of any and all evidence?" The bite mark in her wrist is already healing, just like the boy as he clambers out the back door. "And _besides_ , we just fed on them—a little courtesy wouldn't hurt."

It's only fair, she wants to add, but she senses another tease coming so she bites her tongue.

"Courtesy," Klaus repeats. He looks baffled. "You think a thank you and a proper send off makes up for luring unsuspecting, beguiled, clueless men home for supper."

"Hah!" Caroline leans across the island and pokes him hard in the chest. "I _knew_ you had a problem with tonight's chosen one—"

"You know the proper term is victim, right?"

"—like _you_ don't cheat, don't give me that crap – you just compel these chosen few to follow—"

" _Victims._ "

"I prefer a bit of a challenge."

"You mean flirting."

" _Okay_ , Google Autocorrect, forgive me." She starts to roll her eyes – changes her mind to nod instead when Klaus gestures at the whiskey, readily catches the glass he slides towards her, takes a nice gulp before asking, "Do you have a point?"

"Getting there. It's fascinating, is all. The way you reeled him in – you laugh. Louder than you usually do, and clearly you're well aware of the effect your hair has on people because you make a point to tilt your head so it spills down your shoulder." There's a disconnect with Klaus's lips and his eyes as he talks – he's still smiling, but the look in his eyes is anything but friendly. Caroline's throat goes dry even after all that blood. She's about to protest, maybe call him out, _stalker much?,_ yeah, that sounds about right—but Klaus continues: "And I just wonder… if that's your variety of flirting, I wonder what you would call… this."

Caroline blinks. "This?"

Klaus smirks, then flicks his eyes to the side – her eyes follow.

From their reflection in the shiny chrome fridge she sees her body slumped comfortably against the island, propped by one elbow, her cheeks red from blood and whiskey. Her hair's a mess but not deliberately so, — it had gotten that way in the struggle to push Klaus off the boy before he hogged all the blood.

And without her realizing, Klaus's hand had somehow met hers in the middle of the polished marble island, his thumb rubbing her knuckles softly, so soft she had hardly noticed.

"This—" she clears her throat, already pulling her hand away. Her mouth is still dry, so dry. "This is—"

" _Bloody_ untimely."

She wishes she were kidding when she feels her heart drop _straight_ to the pit of her stomach, and then there's the rush of blood leaving her head, her hands, when the relief kicks in: Klaus isn't looking at her, Klaus is looking at the window, and it's Damon and Stefan looking grim, grim, grim.

—

—

" _Really_ , Blondie? You _seriously_ expect me to believe that that vindictive bastard coming back after Elena's trapped in a sleeping beauty spell is _pure_ coincidence; he's not here to get his heart-grabby _hybrid_ hands on Elena's blood to resurrect his totally original hybrid army plans?"

Damon's rage is purple and blue, which Caroline didn't think was possible, but here was the proof of it. He's chugging down bourbon like it's water, scoffed in her face three point five times already, and literally _dismisses_ her with a wave, "Stefan, your turn. I can't deal with the amount of crap that's spewing out of her Miss Bubblegum right now."

She'd cracked her own glass at the back of his head for that, and Stefan had thankfully whisked her out of there before Damon could decapitate her like she knows his hands are itching to.

Stefan isn't as much of a dick as Damon, but even she senses scepticism from him. Honestly, if the situations were reverse she would be too, but she couldn't possibly tell him that she's not _lying_ , Klaus really is just _visiting_ – the way he's had every so often the last year. But to tell them would mean revealing the whole god awful ugly truth, the truth that not even she could understand—

"You're not suspicious at all?" Stefan squints, hero hair flapping in the night breeze. "Not even in the slightest?"

" _No_." And she sighs, and she squeezes her eyes shut, and she allows one tiny confession: not a lie, but not entirely the truth, "He's here because I asked him to come."

He's here because they have an arrangement.

"We're friends?" she tries again, but even that sounds supremely lame, considering… everything that's happened before. Realizing defeat, she adds, rather sheepishly, "He got me a mini fridge for graduation."

Stefan steps back, regarding her impassively. She knows this look. She gulps, tries to take it back but can't – the cogs in Stefan's mind are turning, turning, turning.

"I can hear you thinking."

"Wanna know what I'm thinking?"

Not really. "Sure, Stefan."

Stefan looks at her long and hard, and Stefan says: "I think you're lying, and I think I really don't want to know the reason why—but I know you've got a good head on your shoulders. I know you'd do anything for your friends, anything to keep them safe. I know how much you want to keep that head on your shoulders. And I know if Klaus tries anything, I know you won't stand in our way when we rip his fucking heart out and scatter it in the gutters of Mystic Falls."

He's still watching her closely when her mouth opens and closes wordlessly.

"Caroline?" Stefan prompts.

Damon's got all the bark, but Stefan's the one with the teeth, really.

At long last, her voice comes returns. Looking back, it should have been a sign then, her reluctance to look into Stefan's eyes.

"It's only fair," she says, but faintly.

Stefan seems satisfied at that.

—

—

* * *

 **Klaus [11:49PM]:** Sorry we had to cut our little tryst short. Oh, and for future reference – you might want to Google what that means.

* * *

—

—

In the end it's all a bit anticlimactic, because Klaus leaves without wreaking any sort of havoc, unless you count the noticeable decline of whiskey at the Grill as disaster.

In the end— and she _really_ should have known by then—when you try so hard to avoid certain ruin you end up in the debris.

The day the Salvatore brothers hid Elena away was the day she left, too tired to fight against the current of possessiveness that always hovered around Elena.

Stefan tried to make her understand, but she understood perfectly. It was bad enough having to share with Damon, but to have to share her with the entire population of the underworld who wanted a taste of her, like she was a wild animal to be skinned alive, slaughtered and drawn, served fresh on a platter—

Stefan winces.

"Sorry. Too detailed?" she smiles. Stefan hadn't even let her say goodbye, she was allowed her pettiness.

"No," Stefan says quietly. "Too –"

He averts his eyes. She wills him to say it.

"Too Klaus."

—

—

And it's not like she hadn't tried finding Elena: she's spent years looking, years shadowing, but maybe there's a reason Stefan and Damon survived so long in Mystic Falls: old, unyielding, better at secrets than she was at ushering Klaus into her bedroom window.

Klaus takes a slow turn in her bedroom and studies the new wallpaper, the bed she'd pushed to the opposite wall, the new dresser she'd gotten to replace the corner where all her stuffed animals and battered fairy tales and spine-cracked textbooks used to be.

"Took you long enough to redecorate," Klaus comments, but she senses in him a longing when he pauses in the space where her armchair used to be, his designated spot. It's his first time here in a few years – three years, four months, twenty-two days, _no_ she hasn't been counting, she's just very good at keeping track of things, _alright_? –

"Took _you_ long enough to show up." In no way at all is she resentful. Do not cross your arms, Caroline.

"New Orleans. It's a bloodbath." He says in way of an explanation, sinks down into her bed instead, toying with her ratty old bear she hadn't the heart to throw out. "I won't bore you with the politics of it."

"I don't mind," Caroline says absently, a bit unsettled at the ease in which Klaus had moved around her bedroom even in the unfamiliarity of it all. "Tell me all about dirty, beautiful New Orleans."

"Sweetheart, any other day I would indulge you, but…" he puts her bear aside with a short tap to its head and turns his eyes on her, "This is a visit of pleasantries, so let's talk pleasantries, shall we?"

She wants to ask what exactly pleasantries consist of, but she is more concerned with how subdued Klaus seems. It's been years but he still looks the same. Maybe his hair is longer and his cheekbones more pronounced, but it's still that avidity in his eyes when she says his name, in tune to her presence like a soldier snapping to attention, the loaded question in his single stare.

"Yes, Caroline?"

Caroline stops at the foot of her bed, her hands running along the carved wood of her footboard. "I want you to tell me anyway."

Klaus doesn't say anything as he mulls this over, and she wants to ask _What's the problem?_ Not like she's going to tell anyone—not like she's going to go anywhere, feed his sensitive information to figures in the dark, divulge all his secrets to faceless enemies.

Deep in her resentment she almost misses it when Klaus says, "Say that again."

"Um?" Caroline's eyebrows furrow. Klaus raises his own, and she recognizes a challenge. Especially when it's coming from him.

Okay, then.

"I want you—"

Klaus pulls her down into the bed with him.

She grunts when her face hits faded wool fur, and she emerges from Mr Bear spluttering. "What the _hell_ —"

"Right, story time. Don't give me that look, love – you're in for a quite a tale; might as well get comfortable." Klaus is trying his best not to smirk down at her and failing, and his amusement only feeds her ire. Caroline tries to sit up, but Klaus gently pushes her back against her pillows, so they're lying on their sides facing one another.

"Remind me again why I even let you in?"

It's meant to be rhetorical, but something flashes in his eyes, and – yeah, walked right into that herself. It had been a bit of a surprise to Klaus when he couldn't just waltz in like he used to, when the house no longer smelled like cinnamon and peaches even in the heat of July, but he's a thousand years old and ever perceptive, knowing her like knowing where exactly her fangs liked to puncture in the frenzy of feeding.

"I didn't realize my coming would bring unwanted memories," Klaus says, rueful now, all pretence of laughter dropped. He looks a bit like the way he did when she had to explain why the lease of the house was now in her name, why Matt is well on becoming the new sheriff in town.

"Not all unwanted," is her reply. "It's always nice to think of Mom. Keeps me anchored."

"Is that why you're still here, then?"

"Excuse me?"

Klaus doesn't even skip a beat. "I mean – Elena's gone. Hidden away, as you say. I'd assumed you'd stayed so long because you wanted to keep your mother safe, but circumstances being what they are…"

Caroline stares coldly. "You're wondering why I haven't skipped town the minute my mother kicked the bucket."

And because he's Klaus and because he's never been one to pretend around her, he says, "Well, yes. And don't tell me it's guilt, because then it's the same old song and dance—if you're guilty it's because you're attached to judgement –" and here is where Klaus raises his voice slightly, to combat Caroline's sounds of protest, "—and judgem—hear me out, love – _judgement_ usually comes from external standpoints, which begs the question: _who_ exactly would be judging you if you left?"

Caroline props herself up on her elbow and fixes him with a withering look. "Write a book, Dr. Phil."

"I have, in fact." Klaus grins, indulgent. "Several texts, most of which I'm sure you've studied; I prefer to write under a pseudonym." He studies her. "But you're stalling. Why are you still here?"

She hears it, his loaded question.

Small town life, hadn't he once said?

"Nobody's judging me," she says slowly. At least, she doesn't think so. "But I am guilty."

Klaus tilts his head curiously. "Why?"

"My mother, when she died…" Caroline sighs and turns to lie at her back, to stare at her ceiling. "I wasn't there. She was dying, probably wondering where I was, but I was fixing up our cabin." She screws her eyes shut, briefly, surrendering. "With Stefan."

If Klaus goes still she will not ask why – and if he asks about it she would have told him the truth, that Elena was gone and everyone was miserable and Stefan was there and Klaus – she hadn't heard from him in so long, texts unanswered and birthdays passing without as much as a call; she'd stopped waiting for him, she'd begun to think that maybe _however long it takes_ had an expiration date, she'd begun to think—

"Anyway. I was with her when she died, but not… not the way I would have wanted. Not the way she deserved. This is my punishment."

To _stay_ here, confined in this town like her mother in her last moments, they could have left – she could have easily taken her mother away, things would have ended differently—her mother could have died in the sweet relief of sleep somewhere in Venice, in a room nice and airy with bright white drapes, her grasping mom's hand right there, but she'd chosen to stay, and the chance is gone, and since she'd wanted to stay and save this wretched town _so_ much, well, _have the fuck at it_ , Caroline—

She is determined not to look at Klaus, but he's hooking a finger around her chin and turning her head, so she had to. He's gazing at her gently, fixedly, his finger is stroking her jaw, and he says, with so much tenderness in his voice: "Caroline, that is the biggest crock of bull I've ever heard you say. And I've sat through a number of your ramblings."

"Oh my God!" The laughter that bursts from her is unexpected and she leans forward to shove his chest. "You're an ass. Have I ever told you that? I thought we were having a _moment_."

"We were," Klaus insists, easily deflecting her blows, dimples deep in his cheeks, "doesn't mean I can't call you out when you're being ridiculous, love. As always, I have your best interests at heart."

Caroline pushes at him one last time before retreating to her side of the bed, only slightly reproached now. "Okay, shoot. Tell me why I'm being ridiculous."

"Because it all _always has_ to lead back to guilt, doesn't it?" Klaus says, like it's supposed to be obvious. "Guilt is an admission of defeat. It's a wasted emotion. Caroline, you're intelligent as well as beautiful, you of all people know how to discern right and wrong, good from bad, sensible from stupid—"

"Exactly. Which is why I'm lying in bed with you, very sensible—"

"Rude to interrupt a man about to drop some alarming truth bombs, darling, but I'll allow it – where was I?" He gives her a look when she rolls her eyes, "if you feel like you shouldn't be doing something, you probably shouldn't. But if something feels good, by all means, love—"

"Spoken like a true thousand-year-old hybrid with no moral conscience."

"—again with the interrupting!" And he rolls on top of her without preamble, his weight heavy but not exactly unwelcome on top of her, his hands wrapped around her wrists that are trying to beat him off, and if this is his idea of shutting her up it's certainly working. Her carefully slowed breaths blow into his parted lips; his thumb pushes a lock of her hair away from her forehead. His voice is lower now, she feels it rumble behind his chest.

"My point is," he says, eyes following the trace of his thumb, down the side of her face now — all while still keeping her wrist in place, "guilt only stops you from addressing the authenticity of a moment. Sometimes, it is what it is: no use breaking yourself in pieces over it." His thumb sweeps lower, caressing her lips. "If it feels good…"

"Do it?" she chances. Her breath all but taken from her.

"Exactly," he says, and if he's looking at her that way he might as well be kissing her.

—

—

What a terrifying, dizzying thought.

—

—

So _why_ does she still stay? is a question she doesn't know how to answer even in Elena's gifted journal, and she taps her pencil against the page, against her temple, against the stutter of her heart, her heart that keeps trying to recall the taste of his tongue, his skin, his temper.

They're standing on opposite sides of the world, separated by a goddamn signboard, and Klaus, for all his words and worlds and promises, gives her an ultimatum:

"Leave with me," he says, grandly, pleadingly—

But then comes the other part, the one unspoken.

 _Or we'll never see each other again_.

Not so grand, that one.

She is quiet for a long time. Maybe a bit too long, because Klaus swallows and looks, for the most fleeting of moments, anxious – the hope disappearing quickly in his eyes.

"And go where?" she asks finally.

"New Orleans."

The disappointment must have shown on her face, because his becomes a hard mask, his fisted hands slipping into his pockets.

"And what would I do there?"

Klaus, to his credit, tries: but it's hard not to look surprised when you're caught off guard. As if an invitation extended from his hand is all it would ever chalk up to be. Caroline knows him, knows him in his gore and in his bones. Knows that he would want more than he could give, and knows that she – she would want too.

Just not this.

"You would." A pause, a furrowed brow, a coat flapping in the breeze. "You would be with me. Be my consort, my queen. I'll show you the art, the old history, the magic—"

"And after that?"

Klaus stares at her, not understanding. Doesn't bother to point out the obvious.

And she has to add, "I thought it was a bloodbath? I thought it was a kingdom in shambles, I thought everyone was after your head, I thought you wanted to show me the world, I thought you said you could _have_ the world, easy as pie—"

His eyes, where earlier they had been closed against the coil of her hair, bears a resemblance to mountains. Distant. Cold.

"I'd explain, but you couldn't possibly understand, could you? How could you, when you insist on being _trapped_ here—"

"And what about you, parading around with your fangs and fists pretending like you aren't?" She steps closer to the border, so close there was a risk she might cross it. For all the years Mystic Falls has chipped away at her kindness, it has also sharpened her edges. " _Sometimes it is what it is_ ," she says in a butchering of his accent, "except at least I dug my _own_ grave. I'm _well aware_ of the authenticity of _my_ situation—you're still fooling yourself into thinking you have anything of worth left there."

And Klaus too, skirts dangerously close to the line separating Mystic Falls and the rest of the world, he leans in close and he makes sure every word is articulated with derision, "Are you asking me to choose you?"

"I'm not—" Caroline stammers, flustered, God how she _hates_ him, "that wasn't the point—"

"Ask me to choose you, Caroline," Klaus continues heatedly, "go ahead, and I will, with everything that I have. But in return, you're going to have to do the one thing you've been fighting since the night I sat on your bedside and fed you my blood. You're going to have to choose me back. It's only _fair_ ," and he spits these last words out.

Caroline flinches, but she stands her ground.

And it would be easy – it would be _so easy_ to give into that anger, the grabbing and the screaming and the damning and the _feeling_ — she hears it thundering in her ears, sparks collecting in the fissures of her. But Caroline also feels in herself the promise of the world, a peculiar call she can't shake, a fickle burgeoning.

The hands that reaches out to stroke the stubble of his cheek doesn't feel like hers. But they are. Her nails scrape through the grain, skirt his nape. Her thumb caresses his pulse. She takes a deep breath, tests the weight of it in her lungs, falls forward to press her forehead into his.

And Klaus just stands there.

Anger melted off his face, in its place utter shock. Paralyzed, she thinks—but then he wraps his hands around her wrists, as though anchoring her there.

"Klaus," she says softly. She wants to shut her eyes. She doesn't want to know how heartbreak looks like, to see it mirrored in the glass room behind his lashes. "You need to stop telling me how to feel."

"Caroli—"

"Because I feel it, alright?" she continues, and she's _sorry_ she keeps cutting him off, but she has to get it out, pressing it onto him like a burden he's now responsible for, "I feel it, I feel _everything_."

Klaus leans forward, they are toe to toe on that goddamned line, he crushes into her, but still she holds on, still she follows the dart of his eyes, willing him to look, to _listen_. "I know what I have to do."

"All you have to do is ask." Klaus sounds choked – strangled. Is she the one who strangled him? Her hands are still around his neck.

"And I will," she insists weakly. Her lids are heavy but she can't look away. She needs to say this. "In a year, maybe a century, _who knows?_ But I will, and we both know that. We both know I can't escape you."

"I'm not here to trap you, Caroline. I'm not this town." Klaus's thumbs circle her knuckles. "You aren't as perspicacious about my emotions for you as you'd like to believe. What I want from you isn't to keep you by my side, or to wrap you up in promises or gold, tempting though that might be. You underestimate _how_ I feel. I want your marrow, your muscles, your trembling heart; these things that are yours, which I can readily take with a plunge of my hand, but I won't. I want your elements with mine. Everything that exists about you and I, existing together. Not in a glass jar, not to be studied at my disposal, not to pin you down in my sketches. I want…"

Klaus blinks, regains his breath. He seems to remember himself.

"I want you to choose me – or rather, I think I want you to love me, not in despite of, but _for_ all the bloodshed. But," he says, and she can taste the regret in the space between their tongues, "that would be a cruel mutation of your rudiments. The barest of your bones ground to fine powder in my hands. And we can't have that, can we?" Klaus takes a step back. He looks at her wistfully. "What a pity."

When had he taken his hands off of her? As easily, as quietly and as secretly as he touched her he leaves her the same way, and she's caught in that dizzying notion again. That she should kiss him. That's what lovers do when wars tear them apart.

But they aren't lovers, and this isn't a war. It used to be, but she's zoomed right past those exits, hadn't she?

One last hungry sweep of her and then: "Good bye, Caroline."

"Good bye, Klaus."

She doesn't know what to do.

She waves.

Like Grace of Monaco— like a goddamn princess.

—

—

* * *

 **Caroline [7:43PM]:** i can't love you for the blood. i can't love you despite of it either. i can't change who i am, i can't turn it all off again. i can't stay here. i can't leave. i can't forget y

 _Do you want to exit without sending this message?_

 _Yes._

* * *

—

—

On her birthday, she gets three things: a present from Stefan, wrapped in pink and gold – a new journal, smelling like the aged leather and ink of his library, and the Stefanness of it all pulls from her an old nostalgia that she almost forgets he'd locked Elena away.

The other is a card from Bonnie, pictures of her daughter. _When are you coming to visit? Yulia misses you and your stories._

The third one she takes her time with. She showers, slowly, languorously, tells herself she isn't _stalling_ , before wrapping herself in a towel and bending over it with a steeled resolve. There's no card, but something hard and cold wrapped in tissue paper that smelled of palmarosa and rose.

It's a bottle of champagne, expensive, snug in its little basket.

—

—

Two things she is certain, even as she dials a long-lost number, wheedled out of a disapproving Stefan—

(He would understand, she knows, if she had just explained, but she hadn't. She'd been too _scared_ , still seventeen despite the years, the music, the food, the blood, the sex—she'd been afraid of what he would say, or what he wouldn't say. But then he wouldn't blame her, and she desperately wanted him to.

It takes a full hour, but he relinquishes the number at long last, along with an unnecessary reminder to stay out of trouble when he knows full well she wouldn't.)

Two things. The first—

"Audrey!" Kol crows immediately after the second ring. "How nice of you to call."

"How did you know it w—" She shook her head. It doesn't matter. "Where is he?"

"Where is who?"

"Don't play coy."

Through the distance and the static, she can already see the sly curve of his lips, the ancestral smirk. "My, my, how the mighty have fallen."

"Kol."

" _Audrey_ ," he admonishes in very much the same tone, and then comes the sound of a drink being swallowed. "He's made himself known, I gather?"

Caroline moves from her dresser to the window, the electric buzz of the city seeping into the night sky, draping over the forest of skyscrapers around her. "The champagne was a dead giveaway."

"Ever so _Nik_ of him."

She hums a response, eyes transfixed on network of streets far beneath her feet.

She looks down far beneath her feet at the heartlines of the city and the way it lit up like a festival.

She waits.

On the other end of the line, static whirrs.

"What do you want me to _say_ , Caroline?" Kol's dropped pretense now. He is not Elijah, he could never sit well in silences. It's in anger that he thrives, the unhappy downturn of mouths, the tight clench of teeth. Kol is only happy when he knows you aren't, when you are unsettled by him. Caroline knows this. "I don't bloody know where he is. We don't exchange postcards or anything, and you _well_ know that."

"He knew where I was," Caroline says a little accusingly. "And the last person I saw was you."

"You're not exactly the most unfathomable of creatures. Weren't you still playing at princesses when I found you? Rebekah's the same, I wonder what it is with blondes and wish fulfilment—"

"Fuck _off,_ Kol." The press of cool window against her forehead calms her down a touch, but she's still frazzled. Maybe it's the nerves that makes her voice drop, that makes her ask, "He reached out, and I don't know why. It's been years. Your brother should have forgotten about me."

This time, it is Kol who's silent. Caroline worries on her bottom lip as the static grows. She wonders where he is that makes his voice sound so faint. At long last, there's the crackle of his voice, a sudden coldness: "We've never really been the type of friends to trade advice, Caroline. Whatever makes you think we should start now?"

She's a little stung, but she can't help the smile that slips through. "But we are friends?"

"Got me there."

Caroline grins now, and imagines him grinning back. There's another pause, longer this time, and then he says, "Rebekah might have mentioned something about some unfinished business in Rome. That's all I know."

—

—

Truth be told, she toys with the idea of going to Rome. Seeing him again. She imagines: she in a dress, lingering golds and enchanting ivory, adds little details to the hem, a floral applique train, a sweeping neckline—

—and realizes with a start that she'd pretty much reimagined the dress from that one prom night, where Klaus had pulled her hair away from her shoulder and stepped back and just _looked_. She had no words to describe what she saw in his eyes.

"You're in for a night," he said. She had thought it wishful thinking that his voice sounded a little hoarse.

"Maybe," she said hesitantly, "maybe you'd like to go with me?"

Klaus must have been surprised, but he hid it well with a well-timed smirk. "And what, pray tell, would I do at a high school prom?"

"You could dance. I could dance." Caroline had slipped her fingers into the folds of her train so Klaus may not see them twist and clench. "We could dance… together."

"And after that?" Klaus was looking at her with hooded eyes now, and still she didn't know what that meant.

—

—

But two things she _does_ know— one, she's going to Rome.

Maybe.

Probably.

Bonnie sends her a text, _well? are you or aren't you?_

She texts back, _Guess who got a window seat._

—

—

 **tbc**

* * *

Part two will be up tomorrow! I've got a bit of editing left, sorry to keep you all waiting. In the meantime do leave a review, it would mean the world to me.


	2. machines, too

**If there was some disconnect in the way the story was unfolding in the first chapter, youll find much less of it here. It's narrative prerogative – Caroline remembering Klaus in halfdreams and dusty memories, but now that she's very much here in the present, everything will be told in a much more linear fashion. I put this here because I did get a couple of comments on it. Making it up as I go along? Who? ME? /shifty eyes**

 **Still very much a love story, still very much for Taylor. Enjoy this one, kid.**

* * *

 **THIS IS A HARVEST**

 **II**

.

.

—

 _I'm not sure how to get home, so I'm outside your apartment_

 _._

—

* * *

Loving is not delicate, Caroline knows this too. She knew Klaus to be an animal – too animal to be pure man. He had wolf's teeth when he smiled, when he laughed. He looked at her with a longing that could still oceans, raise suns. There was nothing delicate about that.

She doesn't know Klaus to be gentle. In the half-light, maybe. A curious stir of the stars, the velvet blue veil of night, half-deflated balloons floating limply along a confetti-strewn walkway, a touch of blood and carnival in the air. He'd kissed her and swore himself to her; he didn't bend the knee but he looked at her like he might have. If she asked.

If she asked.

—

—

The plane touches down, the wheels hit the tarmac, Campino sunlight shatters in her eyes, and the _things_ this does to her heart—

—

—

Rome is – in all its senses, in all its relics – poles apart. It isn't the detached grey bustle of London streets, nor the precise strike of leather soles against cobblestones. It's – warmer.

There is nothing romantic about being alone in a city that doesn't know her name. There is nothing romantic about starting over from zero. _So_ Caroline hasn't been here before, but the situation isn't unfamiliar. She's old enough to know by now, old enough that she's become desensitized to it by now

Or at least, she ought to.

She'd always been a terrible liar, according to Damon.

She pushes her sunglasses higher up her nose.

Honestly, she doesn't know _what_ she's doing in Rome, doesn't know where to go, doesn't know how to start. She's alone in a city where nobody knows her name, and it would be easy to slip back into old habits.

Hi, my name's Clara.

Hi, my name's Audrey.

Hi, my name's—

She lets out a breath.

 _Caroline_.

If she's in Rome ready to stir up old ghosts, feelings that should have stayed dead in her heart, she doesn't want to be anybody but Caroline. It's the way her name always fit in his mouth, syllables fighting their way out, a gasp, a wonder when they did.

She walks out of her hotel, squints down at the little landmarks outlined in red on the screen of her phone, screws her eyes shut and goes to the first place her forefinger lands on. She doesn't know why it feels enormous in her chest, when she opens her eyes to see St. Peter's Square stretched out before her. She circles the looming obelisk and runs her hands on the stones lining the fountain and the feeling swells and swells.

She winds in and out of the triple columns of the side portico, touches her hands to details carved into stone from hundreds of years ago. It sends a thrill of something down her spine, something she's never really given herself time to fully consider.

Immortality.

The weight of the thought bears down on her even more when she considers that _she_ had been the one to choose this.

Her life had been pulsing in Klaus' wrist and she had drank it out of him.

She had chosen a thousand more birthdays.

She'd chosen not to die.

—

—

It takes two more turns of the cobblestone sea for her to be struck by another clarifying thought: that it didn't matter if she spent all of those birthdays searching every corner and crease of this city, this universe, if she wasn't prepared to be found herself. He'd sent her champagne, and that was telling. Wasn't it? And what had she done? Called Kol.

Sometimes—sometimes she can be really dumb.

—

—

Roman sunlight. Her hair looks different in it.

She drinks in Rome until her chest is filled to bursting. She eats _fritti_ on the Spanish Steps and drinks grappa out of shot glasses, is very tempted to rent a Vespa and feel the wind thick in her hair but gets hungry for something that isn't from a street vendor, for something hot and thick, to soothe the restless hum rattling in her bones.

Everything's different here. The heat is what she notices at first, but then it's never ending flow of bodies moving in the streets, in the chapels, in her teeth. She tastes them there, maps out their veins ticking away behind their skin. She hasn't felt this hungry in a long time.

Klaus must be nearby, she feels.

—

—

It's easy enough to find prey in a crowded Roman bar. She doesn't feel all that clenched up about it anymore. Blood bags, wrists, necks. It's a natural progression, she finds. Something like evolution. Not the dismantling of her crux, her strict rules, her made up do's and don'ts.

Nature.

Nurture.

But the thing is, she realizes as she drinks from a girl's neck and thanks her graciously after, luring Klaus out is not as easy as tipping her head, laughing at stilted jokes. He can't be compelled, that much is obvious.

How could she have been so arrogant to think her mere presence would call him out of the underbelly of this city? That he'd move mountains for her just because she wanted him to? It's been ten years, how could she be _so—_

"You're looking far too glum for a girl who's just drank from a handsome neck."

She's startled out of her reverie to find a girl smiling at her two seats away. It's a smile with pointed teeth.

Subtle, these Italians.

"And you are?"

"Your new best friend." She hops down from her stool and holds out her hand. "Come on, we're late to a party."

"It's 11am."

"People do not celebrate so early where you are from?" she quips, looking genuinely confused.

"You seriously think I'll follow you?" Caroline asks. She's wary, but she's also bored, and really, really _dumb_ (see: before), which must be why she's not as cautious as she should be. Her skins should be prickling. It isn't.

The girl steps back but she doesn't lower her extended hand. She studies Caroline. "You're here because you followed your heart, yes?"

Caroline doesn't move from her seat. "And you know this, how?"

"I could smell it off of you."

She sighs. "I don't even know your name."

"Is that what's got you worried!" She laughs. It's a chirp of a thing, not entirely unpleasant, and – oh, Caroline couldn't have been _that_ lonely. "Allegra. Now come."

Caroline rolls her eyes but finishes her drink anyway before following Allegra out of there. When in Rome, right?

—

—

Allegra's voice is raised over the noise that commonly comes with flea markets, even one as robustly mobbed as Porto Pesse. Caroline follows helplessly along, trying to keep Allegra in her line of sight as she points out delicacies, holds up linens against Caroline's cheeks; she twists her neck slightly not to make sure if Caroline is still following, but to flash her a bright smile. Caroline almost feels offended at the guileless faith she's depositing.

"You smell like a foreigner." Allegra continues, grabs swinging artisanal pendants from stalls and puts it up to Caroline's neck, spritzes scent after scent in her general area without even a double check, deftly avoiding the hands swatting hers away. "It'd be so easy to pick you out of a crowd."

 _Exactly_ , Caroline thinks weakly, but lets Allegra pull her through the mass of bodies. At the end of the bazaar-stuffed road, winding down into Piazza Porto Portesse, Allegra sniffs the air around Caroline and lets out a pleased sound.

"Now you smell like an apricot," Allegra declares, which apparently is better than smelling like a foreigner. She pushes Caroline into a boutique.

"What are we celebrating?" Caroline asks as she's reluctantly admiring the silver dress Allegra all but pushed her into. The triplet reflection of Allegra smiles at her from the panels of the 360-degree mirror. She doesn't say anything. Undeterred, Caroline presses, "Earlier, at the bar. You said something about a party."

"Ah, yes." Allegra leans back into the plush sofa amongst layers of expensive fabric and sips her champagne. She looks quite at home, her dark blonde hair almost a ghostly film against the light fixture behind her. Caroline thinks she looks errantly familiar, but when she fully turns to face Allegra, the moment passes.

Allegra runs a finger along the rim of her glass. "A friend of mine just received some happy news."

A sweep of her hands down her front. "And this friend of yours." A turn of her hips. "They won't mind you bringing strangers to their party?"

"I have a feeling you'll be welcome." A shrug. She doesn't seem the type to care much for triviality. "I like this silver one, but let's see that other one again."

'That other one' is a figure-sculpting dress made of pale pink tulle de soie, black shattered motifs saving it from what might have been the death of Sunday cocktail dresses. Caroline felt soft in it. Caroline fluttered. She imagines Klaus running a finger along the geometric inlaid crystals and can barely suppress a shudder.

—

—

Later, in a car Allegra seemed to have summon right out of thin air:

"I have a confession," Allegra says with an air of someone who doesn't have much to confess, "I knew who you were before I asked your name."

"Did you now?" Caroline hides a smile. "Does a Mikaelson have to do with this?"

"You know how they can be," Allegra offers vaguely. At any rate, she looks pleased that she doesn't have to explain herself. "We're here."

 _Here_ is a sprawling green just outside the boundaries of the ancient city, a hill on which a house rested. Calling it a house is an understatement.

If Caroline could clench her fingers around her heart to soothe it, she would. She can't sit still, her knees keep knocking together. Allegra doesn't notice – or she does, but has enough tact to not mention it.

The wheels of the car thud against the dirt-road, the green coppice, the unyielding stone pines, leaves rustling heavy in the wind. As if that wasn't awe-inspiring already, the kind of beauty nature offers to hushed silence, her neck cranes to take in the Liberty-style villa stretching up into the brilliant sky.

"It looks better from inside," Allegra hints, prodding her back lightly. This was as far as the car would take them. Something about cars going in but never coming out.

The driver screeches away.

Allegra prods her again, harder this time.

Right.

Walk, bitch.

"It's a bit of a hike," Allegra tells her, which is even more of an understatement. They're both in cocktail dresses and needle-thin heels, all of which were Allegra's doing.

"You really didn't think this through," Caroline says.

—

—

Caroline doesn't know exactly what it is, but you can just _tell_ when you're in an atmosphere of money. She finds herself on an extended portico supported by columns carved out of marble. A turn of her head and she can see the domes and bell towers of Rome in the distance.

It's all awfully elegant and just so _rich_ she feels ashamed for even thinking it – but it feels wrong. The heavy door swings open with a groan under Allegra's hand, and immediately Caroline hears muted laughter and hushed chatter. The ceilings, with their late-Baroque frescoes, drenches them in sunshine. The air smells like oranges. Every step they take echoes and bounces off the hand-inlaid cornices.

She finds the source of the citrus scent: an orange tree growing out of one big slab of granite in a room that had hallways leading to other rooms. A half-finished glass of wine perched on the granite, forgotten.

Caroline soaks up the house, a feeling of dismay stirring quietly in her belly. It's a house worthy of a Mikaelson, to be sure – but the details are all wrong. It's the rooms, bursting and bright; lush minimalistic creams, floor panelled with light-coloured wood. Carpets so thick her heels sink right into them. Skinny models lounged on white leather ottomans who stare as soon as she and Allegra walk in.

A house made for social calls. Different than the sort of rich darkwood luxury Klaus surrounded himself in back in Mystic Falls. Her uneasiness grows. It's wrong, it's all wrong. She bumps shoulders with beautiful people whose pointed teeth were more pronounced in the late afternoon light, a double door parts, and she sees—

"Caroline, darling!"

Lounged in a chair very much reminiscent of a throne, hair curled golden, and suddenly Caroline realizes why Allegra had seemed so familiar.

And then her back is slammed into a wall.

Rebekah's grip is deadly around her throat, but her smile gives nothing of that away. "What brings you to Rome?"

—

—

* * *

 **Stefan [2:25PM]:** Nice digs, but why are you sending me a picture of an orange tree?

 **Caroline [2:25PM]:** so if i ever mysteriously disappear, know that it's because i was probably staked by one

 **Stefan [2:27PM]:** Cute. Say hi to Rebekah for me.

* * *

—

—

"You don't look terrible," Rebekah remarks, carefree, eyes sweeping over Caroline as they were wont to do – years and years ago. "Not after all that money I spent on you."

"The lamb is fantastic, Rebekah!" Allegra moans into her plate. "Petra did a great job."

"Why don't you go compliment her, dove." It's not a question and Allegra knows it. She scoots her chair back and is gone with a clack of heels. The rest of the table goes with her. Silverware clatter onto the oiled wood, chairs scrape against the mosaic floor, all conversation seemed to cease, until it was just her and Rebekah facing each other at opposite ends of the table.

"What's the deal, Rebekah?" Caroline grouses. "You kidnapped me out of my vacation."

"More like rescuedyou. I have eyes all over the city. I know every vampire who goes in and out. Part of the trade." Though Rebekah tried to hide it, the smugness prevailed. "You were looking very alone and very sad. I did you a kindness."

Caroline bares her teeth in a poor excuse of a smile. "Getting lonely surrounded by your compelled posse?"

"I see your insults have not fared much throughout the years."

"I'm just warming up, Beks. It's been a while."

Caroline expects a barb in return. Rebekah gives her none. "Let's be civil, now. We haven't had a chat in so long."

"That sounds like a prelude to being staked in the back," Caroline says.

"Come now," Rebekah says gaily, "I'm no Elena. Your wine's finished. Care for some more?" Rebekah herself walks the length of the long table groaning under the weight of all the dishes laid out. Caroline stops pretending to eat and holds out her glass, wary of the way Rebekah arranges herself, in neutral colours and expensive shoes, minimal makeup and lots of hair, leaned towards her with a smile very much telling of her Mikaelson blood. Elijah can try and pretend disgrace all he wants, but even his lips slant the same way.

A thousand years and some on earth must have taught Rebekah a thing or two about wines, because the Cabernet Sauvignon she pours her goes great with the slow-cooked rack of lamb served. Caroline takes a bigger gulp, colouring the inside of her mouth a deep red. She gives a hum of satisfaction and Rebekah, unexpectedly, looks mollified.

"It's been far too long, Caroline," she says.

"Careful, you almost sounded happy to see me."

Her bark of laughter surprises Caroline as she walks back to her seat. "Dessert?"

"If it comes with liquor, sure."

"Planning on getting drunk?"

"Something like that. You and I both know that's the only way we can be _civil_ with each other."

Rebekah looks pleased at that, and between them they finish two bottles altogether, food forgotten, catching up on the times. Caroline thinks Rebekah's ears perk up a bit when Caroline tells her, hesitantly, of Elena and her little sleeping beauty predicament, and feels a stab of hatred when the Original murmurs, "I must meet this Malachai."

"Can't. Damon sliced his head off." Caroline tips her glass empty, then gestures for more to be sloshed in.

"Pity. The brave die so soon."

"You know, sometimes I wonder if I deluded myself into thinking I liked you all those years ago."

"Years can mar judgement, Caroline." Rebekah sighs, and there it is. "They can change someone, too."

"You're still your lovely self, though," Caroline quips, but her heart skips a beat. It's impossible that Rebekah would miss it.

"Your taste, for example," Rebekah continues as if she hadn't heard Caroline. "I see you came all the way here for Nik."

Caroline doesn't deny it. She looks down, briefly, at the smudged imprint of her lipstick on the lip of her glass. Rebekah looks pleased that Caroline doesn't attempt the cheap shot, perhaps an affirmation of _her_ tastes in fostered relationships. What a vain ass bitch.

"You'll find that he's not the same Klaus you knew ten years ago, Caroline." Rebekah sighs. "Elijah's been exiled, Kol won't come near any trains leading here, and I haven't left Italy in three years."

Caroline taps her fork against her lips. "But that sounds _exactly_ like the Klaus I knew ten years ago."

Rebekah doesn't bother hiding the roll of her eyes. "I won't waste my breath talking you out of it then. If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

"Suit yourself. It's far too late and I can't be bothered to call for a car right now. Bit of a drive where he is. Stay the night." Rebekah unceremoniously plucks the napkin out of her lap and drops it onto her plate, before leaving the room in a swath of summered plums.

—

—

Her suitcase is already there at the foot of the bed when she shuts close the door behind her. Allegra is on her bed, looking apologetic. That was the extent of her apology, if Caroline was to get any, because she asks, "Comfortable?"

Caroline doesn't answer, instead just flops her way into bed. "How long have you known Rebekah?"

"I can't remember my life before her," Allegra admits quietly. She sits straighter. "I know there was a witch who performed rituals on me." She pulls back her sleeve and it's only then that Caroline sees the whitened scars etched into Allegra's flesh, sordid shapes and jagged lines. She swallows, looking up into Allegra's brown eyes. "I know that I'm never going back to New Orleans."

"She saved you or something? So now everything she and her brothers have done is okay?"

"Not okay. Justifiable. I owe a lot."

"That doesn't make it right."

"You think I'm stupid, don't you? For living my life like this. You think I'm compelled, constructed." Allegra laughs. "What if I told you I came willingly? I've always hated being alone. They're kind to me."

"If you listen," Caroline blurts out. "If you're beaten into submission. If you _love_ —"

"Isn't that why you're here?" Allegra asks. "You followed your heart. I followed mine. Love is not always kind. Sometimes love is following, love doesn't give you a choice. Love can't just let you be – you have to follow it, and follow it through. I'm sure you know." Allegra slides off the bed and crosses the room to pull the windows close to the night chill.

"You're wrong. You should always have a choice."

"You're here. Was that your choice?"

Caroline opens her mouth to respond, but closes it again. She'd talked herself into a circle. If it had been Rebekah she'd have her token Mikaelson smirk filling up the room, but Allegra just smiles. Was it her choice? She'd booked the tickets. She'd packed until she had to sit on her suitcase to close it. She had felt in her, a pull. A longing, a need. A need so visceral that, lo and behold, here she sits, in this guest bed, with Allegra. What if she hadn't come? Could she have lived with it? Was it really her choice, then?

She shuts her eyes, mind reeling. Allegra takes it as dismissal. "Sleep well, my summer apricot."

"Good night, Allegra."

—

—

At the crack of dawn she is shaken awake by Allegra, who'd already drawn her a bath. Caroline dips her feet in it, silk robe with the Mikaelson crest tied loose around her, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Breakfast had come straight to her room – perhaps last night's meal had weaned Rebekah off what little hospitality she had.

Then it's another car ride, longer this time. Klaus lives in a little Italian hill town all the way in Orvieto – that is as much as Rebekah had divulged in the two hours it takes them to arrive there.

What she hadn't said was that Klaus lives in a _thriving_ vineyard in a little Italian hill town, wildflowers sprouting through the cover crops, deep and green. As soon as her feet touched the saturated soil she could feel something in the air, a heartbeat, something very much alive.

Next to the green is an electric yellow blanket, contrasting dramatically with the vines.

"It's always wildflower season here," Allegra sighs, a somewhat wistful tone to her voice. "It's something like magic."

"I'll bet," Caroline says dryly.

"This is it," Rebekah says. She sounds unimpressed, but then she must have been here many times now. Either that, or she's just eternally unimpressed by anything and everything. Caroline will bet that too.

Allegra descends upon a patch of wildflowers and starts collecting them in the hem of her shirt, going from patch to patch.

"I hate being here," Rebekah remarks, the way one might comment on the weather.

"Oh."

"Reminds me of my brothers."

"Miss them?"

Rebekah laughs. "I once spent fifteen years not speaking to them."

The corners of Caroline's mouth twitch. "Were you daggered back then?"

"Bitch," Rebekah comments. The weather again. She flips her sunglasses over her head. "They're jugheads, Caroline. When Kol, Elijah, Klaus and I lived here you wouldn't imagine the sort of rows we'd get into. Klaus has been in a mood for ages."

"In a mood," Caroline repeats with a scoff. "That your synonym for wreaking havoc, spilling blood?"

"Well, blood _has_ been spilled, if that's what you're wondering." Rebekah laughs again, but it's darker this time. "As ready as you think you are. You're not."

Rebekah's right. She's not. Her palms feel clammy, her heart feels like it's clenched between her teeth, throbbing. This is ridiculous – she's not crossing a battlefield. She's meeting a man, that's all. She's meeting Klaus, a man she hasn't seen in a decade, still, but the way Rebekah says it sends a shiver down her spine. There is something in her eyes, a cautionary tale – she has her painted nails buried in the meat of her palms, tight folded fists. Does she realise?

"Is there something I should know?"

"A bit too late for that question, dove." Rebekah tosses a smile and cups her hands around her mouth. "Allegra! It's time."

And if that doesn't sound ominous _enough_ , Allegra is behind her at once, tying some sort of heavy-smelling cloth around her nose, and she smells nothing but the odd mixture of roses and something sterile, like white barren rooms and sharp, sharp needles. She looks at Allegra, her _what the hell_ muffled behind the mask, and Allegra looks a little nervous, a little apologetic, and says, "It's for the smell. It's a lot – especially for a first timer."

Rebekah jerks her head, leading the way. They trod on leaves, crunched dead beneath their boots. Woodland creatures scuttle about, Caroline hears their little hearts hammering against their ribs. Immediately she senses a change in the air. A frenzy. A fidget. Her breathing becomes shallower, the flowers are making her dizzy, and she isn't sure why the sight of a barn looming in the distance makes her heart almost drop to her stomach.

Something tinkers behind the closed door. The metal clink of machinery, the churn of gears. A trickling stream, the slosh of it against moss and stone. Wet, gleaming.

This is it, she thinks.

Something is going to happen.

Allegra looks mighty worried suddenly. "Rebekah, are you—?"

"She asked for it," Rebekah says. There is nary a smile on her face now. She looks grim, her nose wrinkles. The door of the barn stretched high above them, creaking and old. Rebekah has to shoulder it open, and the smell that hits them is enough to send Caroline's hair into a frizz.

The flowers—they aren't enough. The fattening in the air makes sense now: Caroline feels drenched to her bones in the smell of blood, violent and red, blinding her senses. Her fangs slice through her gums and straight through the cloth, she keels over, bloodlust marring all sense. She faintly registers hands on her shoulders, a shake and a shove, and she's whirled around to see Rebekah yelling something, mouth forming words she cannot hear.

The trickling is louder, it pounds in her ears. Caroline tears away from Rebekah, and her mask is ripped away, and she can _taste_ the air. Her breath comes in heaves, veins dance around her eyes, black as ichor, curling down her cheeks, the air is wet, the air is sticky, she feels suffocated by it, everything is red, her tongue tastes like a hot copper penny—

A blast in her ear. A blackening of her vision. Sounds rush back to her, the trickling stops—Rebekah strikes her across the face with such precision that suddenly her gums suck back in her fangs. "— you bint, _come back to me, damnit_."

Caroline is shaking. She's on the floor, somehow, arms around her knees. Allegra has her hands on her shoulders still, whispering something soothing. She doesn't understand the tongue. She looks up at Rebekah hungrily, she knows her eyes must be black.

"Can you keep it in your pants? Are you going to be fucking calm?" Rebekah asks, dangerously quiet. Caroline notices she is breathing heavily as well.

"What is this place?" Caroline manages in a rasp.

Rebekah doesn't answer. She pulls Caroline to her feet. They're surrounded by barrels and barrels and barrels, and in the middle of the hay-strewn barn there is a trap door. The sound of machinery is louder now. Caroline had imagined a sparkling stream, but now – she is afraid of imagining anything.

"Klaus is in there, isn't he?" she whispers.

"He's all yours. Go take a bite."

Allegra goes woodenly to the door and heaves it open. It falls back in a clatter, the ground grumbles its dissent.

Steps, leading down, down, down.

Allegra is still whispering, so Rebekah is the one who nudges her back this time. "What are you waiting for, Alice?"

Upon the first step the trickling turns into a gushing. So thick is the air she feels like she has to shoulder her way through. It's darker down there, but surprisingly not cool, for a path dug into the earth. Every step she takes the temperature rises, until her forehead is beaded with sweat. The tunnel takes her to another door.

Without waiting for Rebekah she reaches for the latch, does not allow herself to hesitate even a second. Caroline steels herself and pushes open the door, and is met—

—with a brightly lit room.

There are people standing around, people chatting, people laughing, people pale but smiling, and they all— Caroline's stomach swoons, turns in on itself — they all have their wrists out and open. That was what the trickling was. Blood, falling in streams into wine presses, the steady grind of stainless steel, grapes swimming in the current of blood.

The grinding never stops, nor does the blood. Caroline finds herself pulled forward by some invisible force, her feet don't touch the ground at all as she ventures deeper into the room, staring ashen at the humans with their wrists out so casually, wet and red. At their eyes, filmy and faraway.

Rebekah and Allegra all but forgotten, Caroline approaches one of them, the one speaking in an American accent. Her hand trembles—when she touches the girl her fingers are painted red. She hisses, "What are you doing?"

The girl, she smiles. It doesn't quite reach her eyes. Caroline strains her ears for the girl's pulse, but it is steady, strong. "Giving blood, of course. I'm one of the chosen ones."

"I think you mean victim," Caroline says faintly. She's going to scream.

The girl narrows her clouded eyes. "Yeah, kay, whatevs." And she turns her back to Caroline, clenching and unclenching her fist around a rubber ball, coaxing more blood from her wrists.

Caroline has to exercise every bit of self-control not to sink her fangs right into her delicious, smooth neck. She's leaned in. It would be so easy—but then.

Then, a voice.

She follows it to the center of the room, where a crowd is huddled together around a much larger wine press, clanging hands and oiled joints and metallic pounding. A gushing, a river, a festival, a convulsing metal beast.

Earlier, she thought of him, and he had seemed so very far away.

Her heart bleats out helplessly, trying to squeeze between her ribs. _Klaus_.

The crowd parts, and there Klaus is, shoulders built for crumbling cities and the swing of the everlasting. He turns – he turns, and the room turns with him. Pupils marbled black, pointed teeth swimming in red, so much more of it in the cup grasped in his hand. Klaus sees her, as he always does, and Caroline, rooted to the spot, cannot quite fathom what it is that shifts inside her when he throws the syllables of her name into the space between them. "Caroline!"

Is it fear?

And then: "Welcome!"

It isn't.

A step closer. She doesn't move. His teeth do not get any less red. He tips his head back, more blood drips into his mouth, and with a quick wipe of his lips with the back of his hand he extends to her the heartiest of welcomes, hands gesturing expansively—

"This is a harvest!"

—

—

 **tbc**


	3. i became the colour

**THIS IS A HARVEST**

 **III**

 **.**

 **.**

—

 _There will never be another one_

 _like you_

 _I want it written on my tombstone_

 _._

—

* * *

She is lead out, back into the world where blood does not drip, or trickle, or stream. There is no more the tick of machinery. There is just the sound of the trees, the slosh of cold air through the cracks in the door. She thinks Rebekah might have carried her, but she can't be sure. She can't feel her teeth, her face, her hands. Rebekah sits her down, and with a long-suffering sigh starts explaining.

—

—

* * *

 **Caroline [9:23AM]:** i think he's been body snatched

 **Caroline [9:23AM]:** i think i'm being punk'd

 **Caroline [9:24AM]:** i am hiding out under a tree because it's so WEIRD?

 **Caroline [9:24AM]:** like i'm not kidding he harvests BLOOD but not for any self-gratitous reasons like before.

 **Caroline [9:24AM]:** *gratuitous ugh

 **Caroline [9:24AM]:** he harvests blood so he can _donate it to vampires who don't want to feed from the vein_. it was like a fucking scene from a horror movie and i thought i was gonna die but then the truth is so fucking weirder. i am practically burrowed in a tree right now.

 **Bonnie [9:24AM]:** How did you do that?

 **Caroline [9:24AM]:** ok i didn't actually burrow, i was exaggerating

 **Bonnie [9:25AM]:** No, that thing where your words are all italics

 **Caroline [9:25AM]:** bonnie he calls himself a philanthropist

 **Bonnie [9:26AM]:** BcI've tried so many times and I still can't get it. I only figured out the bold thing yesterday but it was by accident and I can't remember how to do it again

 **Caroline [9:26AM]:** A PHILANTROPHIST

 **Bonnie [9:26AM]:** Who are we talking about?

 **Caroline [9:27AM]:** KLAUS

 **Bonnie [9:27AM]:** N **o freaki** ng shit

 **Bonnie [9:27AM]:** Ok **ay seriou** sly Car **e how are you doing that i** talics t **hing**

* * *

—

—

It's a hot day. Summer, breathing its humid breath on the necks of the hills, rolling its touch down its backs, making everything with a pulse sweat. It's late August, but that doesn't stop the unfurling of heat, the yellow-green of the leaves, the cypress stretching from the ground, shaking songs from its leaves when the wind calls.

Everything out here is lush and wild, and green.

Nothing is red out here.

Rebekah observes the rolling hills with a sombre expression. "I warned you, didn't I? He's a changed man now. He's—" Rebekah shudders, " _a businessman_."

And with that, as though the thought itself was simply too much to bear, she hikes her shawl further up her shoulders and trots off downhill to where Allegra is waiting, scarf trailing in the wind where she'd tied a knot of it around her wrist. Caroline is unsure whether she should follow, but considering the fact that she's had quite enough of Rebekah for the day, enough of fashionably-sculpted snark, she decides to stay where she is, rooted like the cypress tree rearing its head into the sky, splashing a cool wash of shadow over her skin, where the brilliant blue cannot quite reach her.

A businessman. It's funny. She should laugh. It's bizarre. She should shout.

She doesn't.

She hears: an absurd quiet, the hushed flutter of birds, the sing of something in the air that signifies summer. After a while the warmth of the sun seemed appealing, so she steps out from under the tree, only to step right into Klaus.

"Hello, Caroline," he says, smiling at her. His hair curls as it always does, swept into disarray by the wind. His eyes are blue again. The wind had picked up, which must explain why she hadn't heard his ascend up the hill—now, their every step sounds too loud in her ears: she takes great care to watch how her feet land.

"Klaus," she says in acknowledgement, and looks everywhere but him. The grass is green-beaten by the sun. Their feet fall in tandem, almost a rhythm, every step perfumed by the crunch of grass. She can't stop smelling blood in the air now.

"You look uneasy. Sorry you had to wait, I had matters to attend to."

She thinks of wrists in a line, blood squeezed into barrels, their lost, blank stares. Their smiles. "Those matters. Do they pay you well?"

Klaus grins. "Well…" She knows what he means. He's standing before her, everything's framed behind him like a painting. The hills, the green, the fruit, the blood. All his. He can smile all he wants, but there is still that clash of brutality in him. That God complex, however self-appointed.

"And do you pay them?" she presses.

"Quite handsomely. None of them are compelled to be here if they don't want to." He smiles. "They're spelled to not feel pain. The benefits they receive are endless. They leave when they want. Their rights are upheld to satisfaction, you will find."

She searches that smile as discreetly, as quickly as she can. Trying to find something in it. She's not exactly sure. Everything he says seems so loaded, but then she notices Klaus is holding a basket that looks so homey that Caroline almost laughs. A push of the red and white checkered cloth reveals two bottles of wine, a heel of bread, some cheeses, plump tomatoes still hanging off the vine, a selection of salted meat. "Would you join me for lunch, Caroline?"

They come across a peach tree. Klaus decides that this is where they should sit, but he still looks at her first, waiting for approval, and Caroline tucks her hair behind her ears before nodding yes. Klaus' eyes follow the motion, before he clears his throat and busies himself spreading out the blanket. She folds her feet underneath her, shoes kicked off, and peeks into the basket.

Upon closer inspection, the bottle is actually one of Klaus', and he takes great care pouring it into the wine glasses, gently swirling the glass in tiny circles. He holds it up to the light with one eye squinted. She wonders if it's all for show.

"It's still one of our younger reds," he tells her, watching her sip. "You can tell by the colour."

"It's good," Caroline ventures. Wine is wine. She can't read the look on his face. She wonders too if he's disappointed, if he's expecting her to be worldlier now that so many years have passed – wonders if he's thinking the same thing she is: Could she have been _more_ , if she'd said yes, all those years ago?

Klaus pulls out the other bottle. It's a deeper mahogany, none of that golden tinge the last bottle had. She can tell just from the way he tips the bottle that this, this is what his vineyard was actually made for. The wine coats the sides and releases its bouquet, something warm and deep, metallic.

Essentially… "Bottled blood."

"A touch more sophisticated than blood bags, I would think," Klaus says. Is that a hint of pride she detects in his voice?

She takes another a sip. It's wine, and then it's blood, and from the first sip she feels languid and lovely, a warmth that makes her feel dangerously comfortable around him. Despite herself she drinks some more. It tastes tannic and earthy on her tongue, a ripened red emboldened by the blood. "So this is your unfinished business in Rome?"

"Unfinished business everywhere, love. Is there ever an end to philanthropism?"

Not quite knowing how to respond, Caroline turns to the vineyards. "Allegra told me I came just in time for the harvest."

"We just started on the Mourvedre a few days ago – that's the red wine grape, sweetheart – and even then it's more than two-thirds picked. This week we'll be cleaning up the parcels we've harvested already, going through the cool pockets at the bottom of the hills—" Klaus gestures there, and Caroline follows as best as she can, "the slightly less ripe clusters we'll leave behind for a bit."

"You sound like you know what you're talking about."

"This isn't my first vineyard, you know," Klaus smirks. She refrains from rolling her eyes. As if she could ever forget how old he was. "Would you like a peach, Caroline?"

Without waiting for a response Klaus is already on his feet and picking through the leaves and the branches with deft fingers, and Caroline, for want of something to do, ducks beneath a low branch and searches as well. He picks the ripest of the lot and shows her how plump it is. Fishing a knife from his pocket he starts to peel the skin off for her. Once that's done he offers a piece of it to her, wrist open.

"Go ahead, love," Klaus says. He sees her staring. "Have at it."

She slips it into her mouth. It's so ripe it falls apart on her tongue.

—

—

"So what's the deal with all of this?"

"Ten years is an awfully long time to miss someone," he says, a quick glance in her direction. Caroline holds it as long as it lasts. Could he—but no, he's turned his head away now, swirling wine around in his mouth, swallowing. "I needed a distraction. Eventually it became bigger than I was."

"Cut the bullshit."

"Elijah might have said something about exerting self-control," Klaus waves it off. "Of course, his opinion no longer matters."

"Yeah, Rebekah might have mentioned your exile of him. What'd he do, try to clean up your accounting books?"

"No," Klaus says. He looks at her again, humour gone suddenly. "He spoke out of turn."

He unfolds his legs and starts walking. The blanket lifts with a gust of wind, his weight no longer holding it down. She thinks if she stands too the blanket might get blown with the wind, along with the remains of their short lunch. She grabs her shoes and goes anyway.

She wants to ask what exactly Elijah had said that caused such a reaction, but Klaus is out of reach now. His breathing is a little bit more laboured. "Klaus?" she asks, wanting to touch him.

She doesn't, of course.

"I'm fine, love." Klaus flashes her his teeth, a gallant grin. "Come. I'm a wine connoisseur, which means there is a lot of wine to be had."

"Goodie."

He stops to regard her. There's a goddamn _twinkle_ in his eye, but not the kind that used to make her heart speed up. It's the kind that you might give a friend after not seeing them a long time. Seventy per cent sincere, twenty per cent manufactured, ten per cent the chilled breeze circulating the hill like a gymnast's ribbon watering up their eyes.

"How have you been, love?"

"I've been well," she responds in kind. "It's been a while since I've last seen you."

Klaus pauses, ruminating. "You never once sought me out. I did wonder. I came for you, many times."

Caroline's mouth feels dry. "Little visits."

Klaus' smile is small. In the corners, a shadow of regret. "You used a different word back then."

A different word, for a different sort of feeling she might have had. That he might have had. There is a clutching in her chest, which she tries her hardest not to feel, but it's hard to keep a smile on her face when all she wants to do is fold in on herself and _feel_.

Is she too late?

"I did, didn't I?" And she manages a laugh at least. The wind picks up again: it steals it away, tucks it into the evening, and she feels cold. Reckless and destructive, she says, "I never bothered to Google it when you told me to."

That polite smile of his slides into place. "You were always good at prioritizing. How long are you staying for?"

Caroline shrugs. It's easy. Like slipping on an old mask, like scoffing at him in a long-forgotten room, bracelet digging into her wrist. "Not long. Rome isn't as inspiring as I thought it would be."

She thinks she sees something stir behind his eyes. A glint of reproach, maybe? A twitch of his jaw? He's smiling all the way through, it's hard to tell. "To each their own, then. It's getting late. You should start heading back, the trip to Rebekah's isn't an easy one."

It stings, the fact that he hadn't offered her to stay the night. Caroline is woman enough to admit that. She can barely look at him when he bows his head ever so slightly, "Good evening, Caroline."

"Good evening," she says belatedly.

He's almost at the end of the pathway when he looks back at her. "You will come, tomorrow? I'd hate for you to miss the festivities."

"Festivities?"

"Well, you witnessed the harvest. Time to drink it in." Klaus flashes her another grin. His dimples never once show up. "It's quite the party. You won't regret coming."

"Won't I?" she asks. It's faint, but she likes to think he hears.

—

—

* * *

 **Kol [11:47PM]:** Did u find what u were looking for?

 **Caroline [11:58PM]:** i'm not sure i found anything at all

* * *

—

—

There are summer fruits floating in huge bowls filled with iced water. Plums, blueberries, the majority of it peaches. Caroline considers taking one, but changes her mind.

Rebekah is stony next to her. Everything Caroline says is met with an eyeroll, a scoff. This time she's dropping a drink into her palm, nostrils flared in distaste. "At least _try_ , Caroline. You look so miserable it's giving me a complex."

"Didn't know you were capable of empathy," Caroline snarks back.

"Ha bloody ha. At least I'm not plastering myself into the wallpaper."

Caroline's cheeks heat up. She hadn't – god, how sad does that sound? She hadn't _plastered_ herself, she was simply… lingering. Watching the party. Rebekah had namedropped so much it all felt like one long list separated by columns and commas as opposed to the unveiling of Klaus' new wine, but at least the rooms were dressed for the occasion, filled with beautiful people who looked like they knew what they were doing.

What they were doing was of course sipping wine, talking about it, and then chugging the whole thing down before lifting their fingers for a new one. The air smelled of blood, but not the way a massacre might fume around carcasses, but more like a trickle, a touch, the way you might mix blood into your liquor.

"Except there's _no_ liquor," Caroline mutters. She wishes she were drinking something harder, despite already feeling the effects of wineblood.

" _You_ came here, Caroline," Rebekah says reproachfully. "Don't be a brat."

Before Caroline can retort Rebekah is already gone, leaving her all alone. She can't _help_ it, she _is_ miserable. She can hear Klaus in the other room, laughing gaily at something. She feels that passive flare of temper again, and decides that it's quite _enough_. She downs her drink, grabs another one, and tracks the crowd.

She finds him easily enough: he has red hair and blue eyes, fangs clicking against his glass when he drinks because he can't quite tamp down his bloodlust, and he's easy enough to talk to. She tilts her head, laughs, feels a million miles away; she goes through the motions like the socialite that she is, looks untouchable in the Zuhair Murad creation she'd picked from a long rack wheeled into her room earlier.

"You are an exquisite thing, aren't you?"

Caroline artfully sidesteps his touch, smiles demurely into her champagne. She feels like Audrey. She remembers Clara. At that moment, she felt, quite suddenly, that she hated Klaus.

It's not his fault, she thinks. It's not his fault he _forgot_ you, she thinks, savagely—

"I need another drink," she tells him primly and stalks off, ignoring his protests.

At the edge of the room she's able to recollect her thoughts again, something she's grateful for, and she takes in a deep breath and reminds herself that she is _Caroline_. And that she would be fine, that nothing could touch her, that such trivialities would all be over soon, that she could book a flight home anytime she wanted, that—

"Enjoying yourself, Caroline?" Klaus asks. He appears out of nowhere. A bit like a magician, how he charms everyone in the room, is everywhere at once. Eyes never leave him for long.

Caroline feels awash in the murmur of the crowd. The scrape of silver against bone-white china. Wineblood tingling in her gums, an intoxication far mightier than just alcohol alone. Klaus leans into her space, efficiency in his role: The ever genial host, a perfect Elijah, but Elijah never had red licked in the corner of his lips. That's where the similarities end.

She takes a sip of her wine instead of answering, feeling too wretched to even attempt making sense of any of this. _Rome_. She'd gone to freakin' Rome, sat in a car with a stranger for close to two hours, hiked through an overgrown valley, nearly tripped into a vat of blood, scared the _bejeesus_ out of herself, and all for nuts. All for _Klaus_. It's just – God, it's too depressing to even think about.

"I have to go," she mumbles overdue.

Klaus blinks. "But you just got here."

The plaintive sigh leaves her lips before she can even catch it. She can't help how petulant she sounds when she says, "No, I've been here for an hour."

Caroline turns to leave.

Klaus catches her wrist.

"Funny," he says quietly. "When I look at you time stand stills."

She scoffs. "I never thought you were one for clichés."

"You misunderstand me, love." Klaus shakes his head, chuckling. "It's not that usual hogwash about everyone else disappearing when you're around. It's just—I look at you, and you remain the same. Forever caught in your youth. Time stills its hand for you. It's beautiful."

"I'm not—" Caroline steps back a little, shakes his hand off. "I'm not a painting at the Hermitage. Stop making art out of me. You end up expecting way too much of me."

 _Just like I expected too much out of you_ , she doesn't say.

Klaus studies her. "You sound upset."

"I am."

"What's upsetting you, love?"

"Do you still love me?" The words are out there. Too late to take them back. She doesn't bother clapping her hands to her mouth, doesn't bother widening her eyes, a show of naïve outburst. She came here for that very purpose, she's too _old_ to be flinging around loaded phrases, stepping on eggshells, chasing that old chase. She's fucking _tired_. She asks, _Do you still love me?_

Klaus answers, "Yes."

Instinctual. Matter of fact. Like no other truths exist. He tips his glass back to find it empty, manages to look disconcerted for only a second before a waiter materializes to give him a new drink.

"You love me," Caroline echoes. Slowly, something blooms again.

"Yes," Klaus says again, and swallows the contents of his glass in two long gulps. "Did you ever start?"

"I think so."

Klaus' face darkens. "Thinks and thoughts don't bode well with me, Caroline."

"Threats don't bode well with _me_ ," Caroline warns.

"Did you ever start?"

"I'm here. What does that tell you?"

"Did you ever _start_?"

"I did," Caroline says this time. She raises her chin. He is standing so close to her. Too close. Might be that the other guests notice, but the harmonica's still plucking, golden cherubs still float aimlessly around the vaulted ceiling, blood and champagne alike are still being tossed down thirsty throats.

A waiter bustles past and Klaus side-steps him, ending up pressed to her side. He is looking thoughtfully at her, and Caroline wants to tell them how _loud_ his thoughts are being right now.

She raises her glass to her lips again, feigning nonchalance, her own throat suddenly dry. Her fingers almost tremble with the effort.

"Caroline," Klaus finally says into her ear. His lips barely move, aware of the heightened hearing of everyone in the room despite the booze and the buzz. "It is pertinent that you and I make love at the earliest convenience."

Caroline chokes on her drink.

"You're awfully confident." Except it sounds like a question, and Klaus is grinning hazily down at her, a fondness in his eyes. He lays a heavy hand on her shoulder, one finger at a time, last finger lifting every time he lays a new one down. He touches her.

One, two, three, four, five.

She holds his gaze.

"Soft," Klaus says. "Just like I remembered."

"And you're drunk," she points out, a sigh clouding up her glass.

Klaus just nods profusely as he motions for another drink to be put in his hand. "Just a touch, yes. Just enough – to – when it's a celebration, one must celebrate!"

And he _smiles_ at her. None of that manufactured geniality of yesterday, but a smile that brings out his dimples, that erases blood from his hands. She thinks maybe if she looks hard enough she'll still find it caked in his fingerbeds, but it's Klaus. He will always have blood flaking off of him.

Caroline considers him, like this, filled to the brim of his curls with something bubbly she feels in herself. An elation, a confusion, because this isn't what she imagined him to be like. Not at all, this amicable _philanthropist_ , this businessman, this _wine connoisseur,_ the many new names he calls himself. He had always been so damned intense around her, like all the air surrounding them had ceased to exist, clinging onto her every word with his hands clasped behind his back.

Yesterday, Klaus could barely hold a smile longer than a second at her.

She'd texted Bonnie this description of him (though in not so many words and passions) and Bonnie had just texted back a stream of question marks, nine in total.

But now, now he beckons her down a darkened hallway, away from the music and laughter, the golden drape of celebration melting away as she follows after him, careful to not make a sound.

She reaches for his hand, like an afterthought.

Klaus makes a sound of surprise. She feels his fingers tighten around hers – not a clench, but a cradling, the slide of the skin of his palm across her knuckles. He never once looks back at her.

He leads her down a staircase, a turn left down a hallway, presses her quickly into the shadows left by the tilt of a grandfather clock when a giggling couple rushes past, which is just as timely, for Rebekah's voice wafts down from the floor above, a shrill demand of where the _hell_ Nik has disappeared to, guest of honour her _ass_ and he had to leave _her_ to deal with the riff and the raff, and had he actually brought the 1986 with him?

"I did," Klaus says cheekily into Caroline's ear, and she can hear the champagne sloshing about inside his jacket, against the drum of her heart.

"We're not actually going to sleep with each other," Caroline whispers, heart in her throat.

"And why not?" he whispers back. In the dark, she feels him hook a finger through her curls, tugging lightly.

"You're serious?"

"Yes. Tell me why we shouldn't."

"Because—"

 _Because of who you are_ , that old stubborn part of herself insists, thinking of yesterday.

Another part of her, the braver part, is silent for once. She bites her lip, and for the first time allows herself to feel his presence. His weight pressed against hers, steady and warm through the sharp cut of his suit. This free hand in the folds of her dress, her fingers rested against his shoulders. The tilt of his head, like he's about to kiss her, the half fold of his lids, the light trapped in his lashes. She feels it: not just his presence around her, but within her, held close to her breast. A truth kept hidden, forced down into a secret. A flutter, a gulp. Love. It beats within her gently, like the unfurling of wings, and she chances a look into his eyes.

It's not so dark that she can't see the want in his eyes, and—and something else, too.

And with that, she makes up her mind.

"We're not having sex in this house, where a bajillion of your hybrids are scaring wine critics into submission, with your sister screaming around every corner." She takes a deep breath and pushes away from him, but she knows he doesn't miss the way her fingers dig into his chest. His smile tells her as much. "Not at your vineyard, Klaus."

"I was already heading for the garage, sweetheart," Klaus says. There's a trace of amusement in his voice. "Let me take you home." He threads his fingers through hers again and kisses her hand.

"Are you _serious_?" Caroline asks of that, utterly charmed.

—

—

Being the vampires that they are, it doesn't take long until the buzz of the alcohol leaves them. His estate is big enough that it's a good ten minute drive that feels like ten hours to where his house is, somewhere in the cooler pockets of the green, where the trees are thickest. Klaus stands in his foyer looking sober and bashful, and Caroline, having let him shut the door behind her, raises her eyebrows at him. Gone was the bravado that came with a belly full of wine.

"Do you want a tour?" he asks after a beat.

"Sure," she says, and lets her coat drop to the floor.

Klaus swallows.

As far as the naughtiness goes, that was the extent of it. Their footsteps clip down on the Venetian stone tiles. Klaus describes the cornices and the paintings he commandeered – ("Sure," Caroline smirks, " _commandeered_.") – from various museums in the city. He points out the Bocote furniture, all decidedly un-Italian and scandalously imported. There is an island in the kitchen, and when she runs her fingers along the marble thinking old thoughts she catches him looking at her, faraway, even as he pours her some of that stolen champagne. They leave the kitchen with the glasses untouched. In the living room everything is set close together, enough to make one feel either cozy or claustrophobic, everything within reach should you extend a hand – sort of the way Klaus is, all detached wealth and calloused edges. She imagines a bunch of sophisticates sitting around the coffee table debating art and almost snorts—she turns instead to his shelves. His music collection is surveyed with a determined efficiency, all too aware of his eyes on her back; when she picks an album at random something jazzy and slow fills the room like smoke.

"It occurs to me, Caroline," Klaus murmurs, still watching her, "we've not shared a dance tonight."

She says, "Yet." The word barely leaves her lips before she's already putting her hand in his outstretched one. He twirls her until her back is to his chest. Careful, he puts his other hand on her hip, not too high and not too low. Gone was the man who'd told her, quite ceremoniously, that he wanted to get it on earlier. Now he sways her, she feels fluid in his arms, like grass meeting wind.

She's comfortable enough to ask, "How come you didn't say anything?"

"I've said enough, don't you think?" He dips her effortlessly – her breath catches in a laugh before she is pulled back to him. "It's been ten years. I didn't think – I didn't dare hope. I already did that, once."

"Oh." Caroline says softly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't. I couldn't bear it if you changed anything about you on my account."

Caroline is quiet, thinking about this. In her silence he adds, slowly, "And because you didn't ask."

"Does everything need to come with an invitation with you?"

Even without him looking at her she knows the look he must be giving her. " _Obviously_. I am multitudes, Caroline, but I would never force my declaration on you. I'm not—" His grip on her wavers, "I would never…" And maybe he changes his mind, because he doesn't finish his sentence, and she doesn't press further.

They move like that for a bit, until her impatience gets the better of her and she turns swiftly to face him again. Her hand is tickling the back of his neck, the tip of her fingers getting lost every so often in the curls at his nape. She remembers the last time they stood this way, a long time ago. Toes separated by a border, confessions separated by teeth, sharp, meant to bite.

Growing up in the hallways of Mystic Falls High, she'd seen how eyes would follow Elena, how her locker was always overflowing with cards whenever a dance loomed near: Elena never wanted for attention. Elena never had to ask someone to choose her. She'd thought – she'd thought that was what love was. Just belonging. Elena had to choose in the end, yes, but she had never had to _ask_.

But Caroline was not Elena.

Caroline didn't have to fall into place like coins in a slot machine. Caroline – Caroline could choose how her story ended, and it would not end in a coffin, hidden from the world. Caroline could be selfish. Caroline could want, if she chose to. And she did.

Caroline takes in a breath. "I— I'm asking now."

She can't read his eyes. They are carefully blank. Not like mountains. Not like anything. Just blue, just looking at her, waiting.

"Choose me, Klaus," she says clearly. She looks him in the eye, her voice is strong. It does not shudder, or shake. She knows the truths in her heart now, it spills out of her palm in her offering. "I'm asking you to choose me."

She wonders who will lean in first. It's not even dancing anymore, it's a… bumping. Their knees nudging against one another's, a sway to the left, to the right. He smiles down at her. He looks relaxed the way a bubble bath might lull you to sleep, peaceful in a way she's never really seen him before. He rests his forehead against hers. "I will," is what he says. "I do."

"I'm staying," she decides. "Maybe a little while longer."

And with that, he kisses her.

—

—

He is gentle. Klaus. Klaus is gentle, his hands fit around her face as he is lit up in blue. The lights are off. She'd reached for the lamp earlier, but his hand around her wrist stopped her, and he looked at her hungrily, tells her she looks lovely in the dark.

He touches her – barely even a touch, just a finger meeting the dip between her collarbones, and even then she is shuddering. Now his finger trails lower, and she draws him near.

They're still dancing, somewhat. Her bare feet side-step his shoes, their hips seek friction even as he half-chases her running backwards through the rooms. She doesn't know where he sleeps at night but is guided by only instinct, and Klaus seems content to just let her roam. Along the way his shoes go, then his bowtie is pulled off and flicked over the bannister, his jacket tugged down his arms. Heady and out of breath, they tumble over one another and onto the floor, laughter tugging raw at their throats. Klaus brushes her hair out of her eyes, though the motion is jerky at best with his jacket sleeves caught in the crook of his elbows. Caroline can tell he's trying his best not to put the brunt of his weight down on her, but it's a pleasant heaviness, his knees resting somewhere against the mosaic flooring and her layers tulle de soie, clenched between her thighs. The laughter dies down, his breath warms up her mouth. With a show of boldness she pulls him down, and the way their lips fit together allows pulls a sigh from her. This must spurn him on, because he licks along the soft skin where her lips meet the inside of her mouth— she tilts her head and the kiss deepens; her fingers grasp at his hair, desperate. Their hips shift, push, grind together, she feels Klaus' dampened forehead against hers, can hear how his breath becomes feverish as arches into him.

"Bed?" Klaus whispers, their lips touching.

"I can't—" she shakes her head, pulls him back down, and in between kisses tells him breathlessly, "I can't wait that long. Here – now."

"That can be arranged." There's the sound of tearing as he promptly yanks out of his jacket's hold. He could have easily ripped her dress, too, but he touches the crystal appliques on her stomach, runs a delicate touch down her satin-covered stomach, pauses, briefly, to press an open mouth kiss down between her breasts, and it's almost too much to keep her eyes open. His hands find the hem of her dress and buries themselves in their folds, just like she'd imagined. And then they find her thighs. His lips follow. There's a slant of light that falls into the room, cutting a line into the darkness. It paints her torso golden, it gets lost in Klaus' curls. In that dim light she sees his hands shake as he runs his hands up her thighs. With his head bowed he looks like he's praying. It's such a ridiculous, daunting notion she wants to laugh, but doesn't. She props herself on her elbows to scratch behind his ear instead— like a wolf, she thinks fondly.

"Klaus?"

Klaus takes a deep breath. When he looks up, his eyes are glassy. "Ten years I've thought of nothing but you."

"I'm here now," she says. She swallows. She's blinking hard, too.

"I know," Klaus breathes, and his eyes close again. He rests his forehead against the inside of her thigh, breathes hot and wet against her skin. "I know."

Caroline sits up even more and pulls him towards her. Klaus comes easily, his hands finding the small of her back. His shirt is half-untucked, his lips red from kissing. His eyes focusing and unfocusing on her. She swings a leg over his, they sit facing each other, fitting against each other, her calves framing his torso. It's easier to feel how hard he is through his trousers, and if how shallow her breathing is any indication, she wants him just as much. She presses her breasts to his chest, wanting to be as close as possible, seeking friction in his warmth. Her legs lock around him and she runs her lips against the scruff of his jaw, and she whispers, "Is this not the earliest convenience?"

Klaus chuckles against her hair, untangling himself. They face each other on their knees. His shirt goes, one button at a time. Klaus reaches for her hidden zipper and pulls it down, slowly. She marvels at how he just _knew_ where it was, and with a blush thinks that he might have been watching her more closely than she'd thought. She kisses him for that, a few light pecks, and Klaus makes a pleased sound. Her dress slides down her body and pools at her thighs. He helps her step out of it, and in the process slowly backs her up against the bookshelves behind her, still on his knees.

Caroline's breathing spikes. She knows what's going to happen and it sends a rush of blood straight to her head. There's one last flash of a knowing smile on Klaus' lips before he hooks her thigh over his shoulder and his lips press against her panties. At finding them damp he groans, and Caroline's head tips back when she feels his tongue lick a stripe where he wishes he could be, again and again and again when he sees that she likes it. Her lips part, a gasp, her hands grasp at the shelves – something heavy thuds to the floor, the dull thud of leather. Klaus' hands grip her hips so _hard_ , his face buried in so much of her. He's tongued her panties aside and she can feel nothing but the steady thrust of his tongue inside her, his lips closing on her clit and sucking just _so_.

She feels light in a way she hasn't in years, she feels like a stranger in her own body, watching herself get tongue-fucked by Klaus, Klaus on his knees, Klaus moaning into the slick running down her thighs, watching books and picture frames fall to the floor from her desperate, grabbing hands. Watching Klaus slide a finger inside her, in and out, _slowly_ , as opposed to how frantically he's eating her out. Watching him slide another finger in, watching her keen against him. Watching him keep it up for so long until she's shaking, until she's sure she wouldn't be standing if it weren't for his hand braced on her hip. Watching her bury her hands in Klaus' hair, urging him on, not bothering to hide her cries at all. And there it is: that swell, that rise, that rush—her hips snap, Klaus keeps _licking_ , and it all comes back to her in one dazed rush.

There will be bruises. Not just his fingers on her hips, but vertical lines where her back had hit the shelf hard. Caroline thinks about this with a sharp, quiet laugh and slides boneless to the floor. Klaus tips her head up with his forefinger but doesn't kiss her. He's looking at her with intent, thumb tracing her bottom lip. She's still catching her breath. But she understands, and nods.

That's all it takes.

Klaus scoops her up into his arms and the next thing she knows, she's being laid down on a bed. The sheets smell like him, warm and cold at the same time, like shea and deep soft suede. She stretches luxuriously, her body still thrumming pleasantly.

"You look beautiful, really, all spent and ravished on my bed," Klaus says, giving her a quick kiss. "But can we _please_ get naked now?"

Klaus gives her a meaningful look, and her eyes slide down to his erection tenting up his pants, and she can't help the laugh that bubbles out of her. Klaus doesn't find it amusing. Her laughter gets louder as he lets out a half-strangled groan, dropping down on her.

"You are the ultimate sin," he moans into his sheets, muffled. It soon turns into an entirely different moan when she rolls her hips up into his.

"Am I?" she asks, feeling very much like the cat that's got the cream, all lovely and lazy, fingers running down the meat of his back. His weight on her makes for an electric sort of heat whenever she grinds up into him. Her hands clasp the back of his head. Her thighs clench around his waist. She has never felt so beautiful. "I'll put you out of your misery. Lay some lovin' on me, Klaus."

Klaus lifts his head to make a face at her. She play bites at his nose, he nuzzles against her chin. She swats him away, giggling, and he helps her out of her bra and panties and he kicks out of his pants and they're both… nervous, suddenly, like he hadn't just made her come in his mouth not ten minutes ago. There is a pause, where she huffs, "Well—"

"Can I—?"

Her voice is sharp, her groan long. "Kl-aus."

And then he's running his hands all over – _all over_ – her, she's biting her lower lip watching him brace himself over her, and suddenly – suddenly—

" _Oh_."

"Yes," Klaus breathes, his eyes closing. "Yes, Caroline."

He moves. She feels him fill her up, slow and unhurried, and, yes, she likes that. She likes that a lot. Her hips lift to meet him halfway. Klaus hisses, and his hips bear down of their own volition, his body yearning for her cry. He thrusts into her again, deeper now, quicker now; his lips find hers, swallowing down her sighs and whimpers and she gives into all that beautiful, glorious ache.

Her ankles cross, his hands pin her wrists above her head. Klaus has his eyes closed against her neck, she has her eyes wide open, staring out the glass doors leading into the night. And she thinks: _Stars_ , _you can see them from here_.

—

—

They make love like that for some hours. Caroline loses track of time with the way Klaus' eyes take on a look so reverent when she climbs on top of him and sinks down onto his cock, head thrown back, one hand on his chest, the other gripping and squeezing her breasts. They rock together, find out what they like, find out that Caroline likes riding him slow, then hard, then fast, until his eyes roll to the back of his head; find out Klaus likes fucking her against the wall until she forgets her own name.

In the morning, Klaus opens his eyes just a fraction, sees that she's still there pressed against his side, and falls asleep again.

It's late afternoon that they even consider getting up, but nobody said anything about getting _out_ of bed, so there's that.

—

—

Days later, when they're cooking dinner and his hands smell of garlic and her mouth full of olives he asks, "What made you want to come find me?"

He's been doing this. Asking little questions behind feigned nonchalance, but Caroline prides herself in knowing his tells – at least, she should be able to by now. She hops onto the counter and shrugs.

"The champagne, of course."

Klaus tilts his head. His knife, which had been crushing the garlic beneath his palm, stills. "What champagne?"

"The champagne you sent me," Caroline answers slowly.

Klaus is still blank.

"You didn't send me champagne?" Realization dawns on her. She's not sure what she's feeling – a rising trickery, a horrifying truth— but she'd been so _happy_ , does it really matter _how—_

"No, sweetheart." Klaus looks at her, but she can tell he's not _really_ looking at her, more like through her, mouthing wordlessly to himself.

Her confusion grows tenfold when Klaus puts down his knife and throws his head back in laughter, a full-bellied one. It lasts a long time, and by the time he's finally done her scowl is shaking like his shoulders are.

"Excuse me, love," Klaus says, still laughing softly, and presses a quick kiss to her lips. "I've got to make a phone call."

He leaves the kitchen to retrieve his phone, and from the next room she hears a dial tone, a nervous breath, and then, "Elijah?"

—

—

It's funny, really, how the Mikaelsons work. Elijah shapes a sharp silhouette early the next morning, a lone figure on the hills, and when he approaches there is relief in the swing of his arms, but still such a sharpness in them that Caroline isn't sure whether he's about to strike Klaus when they finally meet in the middle of all that grass.

"'Lijah, you absolute swot."

"Niklaus, you thorough fool."

"Had to go and meddle with my life, didn't you?"

"Someone had to. Watching you anguish loses flavour after the nth year." Elijah rakes his eyes over his brother's face. "Am I allowed the dignityof forgiveness?"

"I suppose this makes up for any poor behavior you might exhibit for the next two centuries or so," Klaus says begrudgingly.

"Kiss!" Kol bellows through cupped hands. His timely appearance surprises no one, least of all Caroline.

Elijah and Klaus glare at each other for a good minute.

And then they embrace, dusty old limbs creaking into place.

Next to her, Rebekah whispers, amazed, "My brothers are _idiots_."

—

—

"Does this change things?" Klaus whispers into her neck.

"No, I guess – don't _stop_ , keep moving – _yes,"_ Caroline sighs in frustration.

"Yes?"

She groans when his hips still. " _No_."

"Yes or no? Make sense, Caroline."

Caroline groans and looks up at him, naked and sweating above her. She has him underneath her with a roll of her hips, and she's practiced enough that she isn't even winded. She ticks off with her fingers, "It was my turn. The universe was right. You were right. It was time. Oh, stop looking so smug."

"Can't help it," Klaus smirks. "It's not always you and I see eye to eye."

Caroline swivels her hips, she bears her weight down, takes his cock all the way in. Klaus presses his thumb to her clit, watching through half-lidded eyes the way her back arches. "Your turn to what, love?"

"Do I have to say it?" Caroline struggles to keep her eyes open, but the way Klaus touches her has her biting on her lip. She falls forward, this time, arms framing his head, elbows sinking into the pillow, the ends of her hair curling around his face.

Klaus breathes her in, his eyes still intent on her face. "I would like that, yes."

"I choose you, too," Caroline whispers. She traces a finger on the smile that forms on his face, the dimples dug into his cheeks. "Don't ruin it."

"You think the worst of me, sweetheart," Klaus grins. There's a glint in his eyes. He presses his thumb harder on her clit, rough and fast, silently urging her to give in to him, his hips rocking against hers, a grunt, frantic. "I would _never_ begrudge excellent taste."

Caroline comes, cursing him all the way.

—

—

Days turn into weeks. It's easy to settle into bliss, to forget the passing of time, to fit her body against his.

But her phone blinks with the weight of unread messages, her clothes are flung around his house to the point where her suitcase starts to empty, and she wakes up one day feeling like it was time to go home. All good things, her heart reasons. Bonnie is insisting she visits, her texts getting a longer and inflected with emotion; she's finally learned how to italize them, bless her. But even without Bonnie's call Caroline always knows when it's time to leave a place, city tucked into a box and name left hanging from her doorknob, but this – this feels different. This is her resting her forehead against Klaus', and Klaus circling her wrist with fingers so light but a touch so heavy.

"You'll come back?" he asks, because he is always asking.

"Of course," she says. She closes her eyes and they kiss, long and lingering. Somewhere in the house she knows Kol is eavesdropping, because she hears sounds of him retching. When they break apart they are laughing softly; Klaus touches their smiles together again.

"We'll meet again. In a different city?" She grins, hopeful. "Let's try Southeast Asia."

"I do own a string of hotels there," Klaus says thoughtfully. "Now that Elijah's back, I suppose the winery will be taken care off."

They hear a crash from upstairs, a muffled whoop.

Klaus rolls his eyes. "Kol seems excited to take over as well."

Caroline pastes on a smile. "Well, Klaus. I guess I'll see you in a bit."

The way Klaus is looking at her makes her wonder if this is it: her marrow, her muscles, her trembling heart. Klaus standing before her, beaten down to his bones, all the blood drained out of him, always something hungry in him, always wanting, always needing. And she loves him. Maybe not for it, definitely not despite of it. But she loves him, and she's chosen him, and that's a start. That's all anyone ever needs – a start.

Klaus buries his nose in her curls, she places a kiss on his neck. It's easy to make him shudder, she knows now, but she doesn't expect him to press her up against the wall, to kiss her like she's unbreakable, and she supposes she is, now. Her knees buckle, his hands shake, her lips find his, they swallow each other as though starved. His teeth find her neck. He doesn't break the skin, doesn't drink from her neck. They'll have time for that soon, something to look forward to when she finds him again. The kiss he presses on her shoulder burns through her skin.

 _Don't go_ , he almost seems to say, _don't forget—_

She shakes her head, smiles through the wetness. What a silly, silly man.

"I won't be long," she promises.

—

—

The air still smells like blood. Harvest season will be over soon, with the end of autumn. Caroline thinks she might miss it, but then thinks: _nah_. Just before her plane takes off, before she has to watch the million lights converge into one and disappear into the distance, she pulls up an old, old draft, and hits send.

—

—

* * *

 **Caroline [12:28AM]:** I always knew what that word meant.

* * *

—

—

 _fin_

* * *

 **some notily notes:**

 **1) funnily enough, beyonce's "pray you catch me" was on repeat during the sex scenes. it has just the right amount of rawness and emotional intimacy i had hoped to pour in the scene, so maybe you might want to listen to that.**

 **2) tryst** —

noun 1. a private, romantic rendezvous between lovers.  
"a moonlight tryst"

verb 1. keep a private, romantic rendezvous.  
"a trysting place"

 **3) sometimes i think my writing goes through weird little phrases. sometimes i vomit words and sometimes i'm like a threadbare sweater, the kinds that have your neeps peeking through if you don't wear the right undershirt. i'm going through a thing. i'm happy with the story, i think, but maybe it's cause i finished the entire thing and posted it up without even reading through, being the cowardly shit that i am. i hope you enjoy nonetheless, the way i've enjoyed stitching this story together.**

 **4) the amount of wine blogs i read is not even funny**

 **5) please love me with a review**

 **6) and then go and say hi to taylor (candicemorgan on tumblr), without whom this story would never exist. love her down to her bones for me, would you?**


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